Biotech Program Manager

Biotech Program Manager

South San Francisco, CA Position: Biotech Program Manager Location: South San Francisco Type: Full-time

Ohalo is hiring a Biotech Program Manager (PM) to lead one or several discovery, development, or production programs. You will manage and oversee programs focused on discovering molecules, or developing transformation or acceleration techniques, working at the molecular, cellular, and whole plant levels.

This is a full-accountability leadership role: you will act as the general manager for a set of breakthrough technology programs, owning outcomes, defining strategy, and managing the work of cross-functional individuals from science, engineering, and operations.

You will be responsible for setting deliverables, assigning work, developing and updating timelines, and ensuring on-time delivery of outcomes.

This role requires a candidate who is competent with molecular or cellular biology or biochemistry (but is not necessarily a plant scientist), has experience designing, developing, and managing high throughput and automated lab workflows, has strong leadership and organizational skills, and is very capable and proven in leveraging AI tools to accelerate and scale work output.

The ideal person thrives in a high-ownership, fast-moving environment and is excited by leading breakthrough scientific discovery efforts.

Responsibilities:

Program General Management & Accountability

• Own program success for one or more programs focused on discovery, process development, or production workstreams.
• Design high throughput and other technology-led methods for screening, discovery, and process engineering.
• Drive alignment across stakeholders and executive leadership and ensure crisp decision-making, escalation, and accountability.
• Own budgeting, forecasting, and analytics of managed programs.

Cross-Functional Orchestration & Execution, Communications

• Build and maintain integrated program plans that connect complex biological systems with, for example, hardware and software systems, ensuring dependencies and critical paths are explicit and managed.
• Define program architecture at the "system level" (workstreams, interfaces, handoffs, validation strategy), and ensure teams execute to an integrated schedule.
• Lead execution across science, engineering, lab and greenhouse operations, —coordinating interdependent projects into a single coherent program plan.
• Directly manage and drive execution of cross functional program team members.
• Proactively identify bottlenecks and unblock teams through clear prioritization, fast follow-through, and structured problem-solving.

• Create clear communication artifacts for diverse audiences—from technical deep dives to executive summaries.

Tech- and AI-Led Program Management

• Use modern tooling—including AI—to accelerate planning, synthesis, execution, communication and documentation.
• Promote practical AI adoption within the program team (e.g., structured decision logs, automated status synthesis, faster technical writing), while maintaining high standards for accuracy and traceability.

Qualifications:

• 2-8+ years experience leading complex, cross-functional programs or portfolios (R&D, biotech, agriculture, engineering, or related), with clear accountability for outcomes.
• Strong technical foundation and systems thinking: comfort operating across biology + hardware + software/data and synthesizing ambiguity into executable plans.
• Experience developing and utilizing high throughput automated screening and workflows.
• Understanding of molecular biology, cellular systems, or plant biology.
• Demonstrated ability to manage cross-functional workstreams and deliver against timelines, milestones, and stakeholder commitments typical of program management roles.
• Proven excellence in communication—able to influence without authority, negotiate tradeoffs, and create alignment across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• High ownership, intrinsically motivated leader who is energized by mission-driven work and holds a high bar for follow-through.
• Tech savvy, with strong AI utilization habits and comfort adopting new tools quickly.
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in life sciences, engineering, computer science, or similar is a plus.

The anticipated base pay range for this role is $160,000 - $210,000 per year for our South San Francisco location, which represents several levels for this function. The pay offered to a selected candidate will be determined based on factors such as (but not limited to) the scope and responsibilities of the position, the qualifications of the selected candidate, budget availability, internal equity, geographic location and external market pay for comparable jobs.